


trusting as a wolf

by nookiepoweredamazon



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: (the violence is actually pretty mild), Alternate Universe - Police, Drugs, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Guns, Implied/Referenced Torture, Sex, Snark, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:43:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4921792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nookiepoweredamazon/pseuds/nookiepoweredamazon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina doesn’t want help, but Ruby won’t take no for an answer. Cop!AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamsheartstory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsheartstory/gifts).



> Rating for language and violence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [otterbite](http://otterbite.tumblr.com/) for catching some of my earliest (and fairly hilarious) mistakes, [arcticdrunkey](http://arcticdrunkey.tumblr.com/) for a whole lot of moral support and enabling (this is your fault istg), and [midnightbokeh](http://midnightbokeh.tumblr.com/) for what is always the best, most motivational beta job ever. <3
> 
> My prompt was ‘red queen cop!au: Regina ends up blowing her deep cover in the drug ring to save Ruby’. This fic is gigantic and I'm so sorry.
> 
> Title taken from _Dragging Chains_ by The Devil Makes Three.

Ruby Lucas’s bright, broad smile had been peeking out from behind the Dark Castle’s front desk for the last two months, welcoming patrons into the casino with a drum of her red fingernails and a flash of white, white teeth.   
  
She was magnetic. The girl batted an eyelash and suddenly the entire room dropped thirty IQ points. She tucked that red-streaked hair behind her ears with a predatory wink, and anyone with a pulse was stricken. She danced a little to the music, hips swaying, and everyone within eyeshot found it impossible to look at anything else.   
  
As for Regina, well, she would be remiss to say she didn’t enjoy the view. Though what she enjoyed most was watching people trip all over themselves in Ruby’s presence. For those eight weeks Regina had watched from her own desk—which boasted two spectacular views, one of the oceanfront and one of Ruby—as an untold number of men and women fumbled gracelessly after Ruby’s long legs and easy laugh, and made spectacular morons of themselves in the wake of her charm.   
  
Then Regina would smirk, with a deep and unshakable satisfaction, as Ruby tripped a little over herself in Regina’s presence. One perfectly timed eyebrow raise or a low, smooth drop of Regina’s voice was all it took, and those cheeks took on a pretty, rosy flush.   
  
(Ruby smiled for everyone, but only Regina could make her blush.)   
  
Ruby was not Regina’s assistant, exactly. She wasn’t Regina’s anything. She had simply decided one day that she was allowed in Regina’s office—that she could bring Regina coffee, could help sort through Regina’s mail, and that complimenting Regina’s outfit was a good enough excuse to sit down in the extra chair no one ever used and smile that heartstopper smile.   
  
The coffee from Granny’s Diner was rich with milk, sugar, and flavored syrup. It was the sort of cheap, sweet thing Regina would not usually give the time of day, but she had been drinking it every morning for the last three weeks because the coffee was terrible, but Ruby’s smiles had been brilliant and bright—  
  
Regina knew, looking back, that it was a mistake to indulge Ruby. She was not supposed to socialize, not supposed to bond; this was a delicate operation and interpersonal connections were a dangerous thing. But there was something disarming about Ruby, and Regina…   
  
Well, she wasn’t exactly immune.   
                                                                

* * *

  
Ruby, it turned out, was not just another pretty face.   
  
Regina sat shuffling the weekly finances across her desk, checking and double checking, repeating the same calculations over and over again and pointedly not noticing that the clock on the wall was ticking towards eleven.   
  
There was no coffee on Regina’s desk.   
  
She dragged her eyes over the same column of numbers for the fiftieth time, silently mulling over whether it would be overly suspicious to dig up Ruby’s on-file contact information. She wanted to call her for just an instant—just long enough to hear the familiar voice—so she would know that Ruby had a flat tire, lost keys, or a hangover. That the woman was simply late. It was never a good sign when employees of the Dark Castle didn’t show up to work.  
  
Though it happened a good deal more than Regina liked to think about.  
  
Regina was in the process of seriously considering giving in—calling HR, as casually as could be, and asking for Miss Lucas’ contact information to update her records—when a knock tapped out lightly against her door.   
  
Regina let out the breath she’d been holding for what felt like the last two hours, and sunk back into her chair.   
  
The sight of a tall, familiar silhouette peeking through the glass nearly made Regina break into a full-on smile, and it took her several seconds to wash the relief from her face. She cleared her throat and slipped back into a mask of practiced neutrality.   
  
Still, her voice was a just little too warm when she called out, “Enter.”  
  
Regina scratched her pen across the page, with a steady nonchalance, and took in the sight of Ruby only through her peripheral vision. She stared at the same column of numbers she’d essentially memorized a few moments more before setting down her pen, and sliding a folder over the top.   
  
“Good morning, Miss Lucas.”  
  
“Good morning,” Ruby answered, shoulders tight.  
  
Ruby smiled, but it fell flat. There was no coffee in her hand and very little color in her cheeks. It was the first time, Regina realized, that she had ever seen the girl without makeup; she could make out individual eyelashes and the soft pink of her lips. The length of Ruby’s hair was sea-breeze wavy, like she hadn’t taken the time to fix it, and Regina thought it would be lovely spread out across a pillowcase in the lazy, early morning light.   
  
It was, however, nearly afternoon; and she had never seen Ruby look so haphazardly put together, or so spooked.  
  
“Is everything alright?” Regina asked, tension settling into her spine.    
  
Ruby cleared her throat and shifted from foot to foot. She cast a long, meaningful look around the corners of the room and then said, in a tight voice, “I hear the beach is really nice this time of day.”  
  
Regina raised one eyebrow. “The beach?”  
  
“The beach,” Ruby confirmed. One of her hands fidgeted at her side, thumb picking away at red nail polish. Half of her fingernails had already been picked clean. They’d been immaculate the day before. “There’s something I think we should talk about.”  
  
Regina watched Ruby worry her bottom lip between her teeth for several seconds, taking in her posture: feet too far apart and shoulders squared off, like she was torn somewhere between a fight and flight instinct.  
  
So Ruby wasn’t just late to work, after all.   
  
Regina gave a brief, unconscious pat to the tiny pistol holstered tight against her ribcage, concealed beneath her jacket, and stood up smoothly. Ruby was poised in the doorway, like an animal ready to flee, and Regina placed a firm hand at the small of Ruby’s back. It was the first time they’d ever touched, some quiet part of her mind whispered to her. How irritating that it was now.   
  
“Very well,” Regina murmured lowly, radiating every bit of calm she could muster; staring into wild, startled eyes. “Shall we?”  
  
Beneath her hand, Ruby steadied.  
                                                                         

* * *

   
The beach was sprawling and quiet this time of year, when it was too cold to do much more than walk along the sand. The wind and waves whirled together in a united chorus and both women burrowed a little deeper into their clothing, hands deep in their pockets.  
  
“Miss Lucas,” Regina began, walking precariously in half-buried heels, “I’m not convinced this is the best place to be having any type of conversation.” The wind whipped noisily in her ears and spun her hair into her eyes.   
  
The waves broke loudly and Ruby’s boots sunk wetly into the sand. “Actually, I think it’s the only place to be having this conversation.” Regina allowed Ruby to lead them towards a dilapidated playground composed entirely of greying wood. It creaked precariously as Ruby spun around and lifted herself onto it, legs dangling. “We can’t be overheard, with the waves and all.”   
  
Brow furrowed, Regina gave a noncommittal hum. She decided not to sit.   
  
“I take it this is not just a romantic stroll on the beach.”   
  
Ruby examined her feet for a moment, tapping off her boots on the side of the castle playhouse and absently brushing the sand from her jeans. She cleared her throat several times before managing to look up.  
  
“I think,” Ruby said, almost too softly to be heard beneath the crash and break of the ocean, “that this casino—Mr. Gold’s casino—is a money laundering scheme.”  
  
Regina’s heartbeat stuttered. Her chest expanded with breath until the pistol pressed noticeably in on her ribs and she could focus on the grounding tightness of its holster, could envisioned it securing her and tying her heart down—preventing it from beating right out of her chest. Ruby searched her face for confirmation and, with practiced precision, Regina gave her nothing.     
  
“I also think,” Ruby smiled precariously, “that you already knew that, since you cook all the books.”  
  
For a moment, the sound of the wind and sea was deafening. Then something swelled up, white-hot and fierce inside Regina as she looked at the woman in front of her, meddling in things so much bigger than herself, things that could get people _killed_ —  
  
“You, Miss Lucas, are a secretary,” Regina hissed. She felt her voice growing soft and dangerous, her lips pulling back over her teeth like a snarl. “The finances are not yours to examine, explore, or _peruse_.”    
  
“I know,” Ruby answered in a small voice, eyes down, “I know, I just… I used to do the books over at Granny’s. I thought if I could show you that I know how to help with the record-keeping–”   
  
Regina clenched her jaw and felt that vein in her forehead start to tick. She’d let Ruby help with too much. She’d let Ruby sort her mail. She’d was just like every other idiot whose eyes lingered too long on Ruby Lucas; she had been _distracted._   
  
“You do a very good job of it,” Ruby whispered, almost contrite, “rearranging the numbers? Anyone else probably wouldn’t have noticed.”  
  
A spectacular migraine was taking root at the base of Regina’s skull, and she took a moment to rub at her temples.   
  
“Do you have any idea how much danger you are in?” Regina began, softly. “The sort of people who deal in laundered money–”  
  
“–Like Mr. Gold–”  
  
“–do not like _living_ people knowing their business.”  
  
“So you and your boss are going to, what?” Ruby gave a humorless bark of a laugh, and Regina did not miss the fear in her eyes. “Tie cement blocks to my feet and send me to the bottom of the ocean?”  
  
Regina huffed irritably.   
  
“Because you shouldn’t.” Ruby licked her lips and slowly met Regina’s gaze. “I’ve already called the cops.”  
  
“ _What._ ”   
  
Regina stepped forward and latched her hands onto Ruby’s knees, nails digging into the denim; effectively pinning her. Her voice was a growl. “When?”  
  
“Yesterday.” Ruby held her eyes with a stubborn sort of indignance, chin lifted. “They told me not to come to work today—or, you know, _ever again_ —so I assume they’re planning something, but...” Ruby looked down at Regina’s fingernails tight on her legs, probably digging little crescent marks into her skin, and Regina eased up. When Ruby looked back up she was blinking furiously, eyes tight at the edges, like she was bordering on tears.   
  
Regina startled and withdrew—tried to step back—but Ruby snatched her hands right out of the air and held onto her like she was a lifeline.

  
“I wanted to warn you,” Ruby said tremulously.  
  
Regina’s hands felt far, far disconnected from her body in Ruby’s grip. She watched as Ruby—who was usually either flirtation embodied or uncomfortably sincere—lowered herself off of the wooden playhouse and stepped into Regina’s space, somehow presently managing a combination of the two.  
  
“Excuse me?” Regina breathed.   
  
“I know it’s stupid, I don’t even really know you, but…” Ruby rubbed her thumbs over Regina’s knuckles, eyes big and bright and gorgeously green, “Even if you’re some kind of money-laundering, sexy-dressing drug lord, you don’t have to be. You can disappear and...I don’t know, become an accountant or something.” Ruby smiled, weakly. “I mean, a legit accountant. Who won’t go to prison.”   
  
Ruby’s fingers were warm, her voice soft; they were standing entirely too close together and Regina couldn’t breathe—   
  
Because the fool girl was trying to warn her. Ruby thought she was an honest to god criminal, and she was trying to warn her that the cops were coming.  
  
“Idiot,” Regina rasped.   
  
Regina’s palms itched, and she wondered very suddenly what it would feel like to wrap her fingers up in that long, dark hair and kiss the idiotic sincerity right out of her. “Give me your phone,” Regina snapped, shoving that particular thought far, far down and summoning a voice that broached no room for discussion.   
  
Ruby paused, tentatively, before withdrawing one of her hands and producing her phone. She was either very intuitive or intensely naive—Regina hadn’t actually decided which yet—because she handed it right over with something like loyalty in her eyes.  
  
“What were you wearing yesterday?” Regina asked.  
  
Ruby titled her head. “What?”  
  
“Yesterday, when you went into the police station. What were you wearing?”  
  
“That’s a weird question.” Regina looked at her sharply, and Ruby quickly conceded, “Uh, okay...black leggings and a red hoodie.”   
  
“Mm.” Regina turned her attention back to the phone, leaving a bewildered Ruby standing in the sand, still clutching at one of her hands.   
  
“I need to speak with Charming,” Regina said as soon as there was sound on the other line, bowling over the receptionist’s hello, “Now. Tell him it’s the Evil Queen.”  
  
Ruby raised an eyebrow, which Regina pointedly ignored.   
  
“This is not a secure line,” she started, the second she could hear David’s familiar voice. “A young woman wearing a red hoodie made a report to someone in your department yesterday. I need you to stop all investigation of her employer immediately.”   
  
Ruby’s hand fell slack, slid from hers, and Regina withdrew a few sobering paces, listening to the questions tumbling out on the other end of the line.   
  
“Yes, this is my assignment, and yes if you come in now you will ruin it. What I am working on is worth waiting for.” Regina brushed a few stray hairs back into place and eyed the other woman dubiously. “Yes, she’s here, I’ll put her on. Don’t say anything untoward, she already knows more than is good for her health.”  
  
Regina held out the phone to Ruby. She took it, bewildered, and put it up to her ear; understanding dawning over her face as she murmured several increasingly perceptive uh-huhs.   
  
By the time the call came to a close Ruby’s eyes were wider than Regina had ever seen them, and when she slid the phone back into her pocket she stared as if she were seeing Regina, fully, for the first time.  
  
“Holy shit,” Ruby said, into the crashing of the waves, “you’re a cop.”  
  


	2. Chapter 2

The waves drew in and out several times before Regina pried herself away from Ruby’s slack jawed stare and kicked her heels off with an indignant sniff, walking until her toes pressed into the wet sand. This was not a time to panic, nor a time for rash, foolish decisions. This was a time for logical, level-headed thinking—  
  
“Kiss me,” Ruby said a little breathlessly, from somewhere close behind her.  
  
Regina rounded on the other woman so fast it practically gave her whiplash. “ _Excuse_ me?”  
  
“I said, kiss me.” Ruby licked her lips with an odd, focused sort of look. The water washed up and the bottom inches of Ruby’s boots disappeared beneath the surface, while Regina’s toes sunk a little deeper. Her heels dangled precariously from her fingertips. “You’re an undercover cop and I accidentally stumbled in on the money laundering scheme you’re investigating, so, kiss me.”  
  
The tide drifted out once more and then up to lap, chilly, at their ankles. A cool breeze lifted Ruby’s hair from around her shoulders to tangle it. Those impossibly green eyes stared the few inches down at Regina with a tenderness that was almost bruising, and Regina glared.   
  
“Miss Lucas, you are _impossibly_ bad at reading signals–”  
  
“No,” Ruby gestured between them, “no, I mean. This, you and me standing out on the beach having a weirdly intense conversation? It’s crazy suspicious, unless…” Ruby tilted her head curiously, a mannerism that was distinctly canine. “Unless we give them a reason that has nothing to do with the money.”    
  
Very slowly, Regina’s eyebrows lifted. “Romantic entanglement.”  
  
“Often tied to beaches, hand holding, and skipping work,” Ruby supplied helpfully.  
  
Regina dragged her eyes down Ruby Lucas, from the faint circles under her eyes to the bold spread of her stance, then up towards the casino’s large, dark facade. Light caught on the many oceanfront windows, making the Dark Castle glisten. No one could hear them, Ruby was right about that—smart girl—but Regina was absolutely certain that someone could see them. Gold had eyes everywhere.   
  
“Miss Lucas.” Regina turned on the other woman with a suddenly predatory expression, her voice dropping into something smooth. “I think you may be onto something.”  
  
Ruby swallowed. To her credit she didn’t entirely startle; or, in the very least, she resisted the urge to step back when Regina stepped forward.   
  
Romance between the staff was strictly forbidden, especially for people like Regina. She was too valuable to lose, she knew too much. But Ruby... It was Ruby who would take the fall, who would be transferred, fired—  
  
 _Safe._   
  
“If we’re about to kiss,” Ruby managed in a small voice, just as Regina closed most of the space between them, “you could at least call me by my name.”  
  
“No,” Regina answered, not unkindly. Then, after several seconds of Ruby staring at her like a startled yearling, “Come here.”  
  
Ruby moved obediently into Regina’s space but looked suddenly hesitant, like she didn’t know what to touch. She tucked her own hair back behind her ears and let her hands hover awkwardly just above Regina’s waist, fingers reaching out and then retracting.    
  
Oh, _honestly._  
  
Regina reached up, cupping a hand at the back of Ruby’s neck, and pressed firmly forward until their bodies were flush. Ruby inhaled, and Regina felt long fingers settle tentatively on her hips.  
  
The green of Ruby’s irises was bright and textured in the afternoon light, her pupils small like pinpricks; and it was endearing and infuriating in equal parts, the way Ruby was looking at her like this was the first slow dance at prom, like she was sixteen and someone she barely knew could hold the sun and the stars, like they were fated lovers embracing on the beach—  
  
No, not endearing, just infuriating. Very very infuriating.  
   
“If I knew all I had to do was uncover an entire drug ring to get your attention,” Ruby said softly, and Regina could feel her breath, warm and a little foggy in the chill winter air. “It is a drug ring, right? That’s what I guessed.” Ruby craned down just a little, just enough for their noses to brush, her smile sheepish. “I watched a Ted Talk.”  
  
“Miss Lucas,” Regina’s nails scraped purposefully at the nape of Ruby’s neck, “do you always talk this much when you’re nervous?”  
  
“Pretty much.”  
  
Regina closed her eyes and wound her fingers up carefully into that dark, thick hair. When she opened her eyes again Ruby was watching her with that same tenderness, that same follow-you-anywhere smile, and Regina had to make it stop before this got any further out of hand.  
  
She surged forward, up, but Ruby resisted, lingering just out of reach. Her fingers tightened a little roughly in Ruby’s hair. “I don’t bite, dear.” She had been aiming for icy. It came out breathy and expectant.  
  
Ruby just smiled that heartstopper smile, leaned down just enough to touch foreheads, to share the same air. “Why do I find that so hard to believe?”   
  
Regina looked from Ruby’s eyes back down to her lips. “What part of the word kiss are you having trouble grasping, exactly?” This was not a romance novel. There was no reason for them to stand, eye to eye and nose to nose, staring at one another with Ruby’s hands trailing up and down her back. Even if Ruby’s voice was the kind of warm and soft that Regina could wrap herself up in, even if her hands were...  
  
“Don’t rush me, lady.” Ruby bumped their noses together. “I’m still adjusting to this cop persona.”     
  
“You won’t live long enough to adjust to anything if we don’t pull this off.”   
  
“When was the last time you kissed someone? Because your pre-kiss talk needs some work.”  
  
“ _Miss Lucas–_ ”  
  
The kiss, when Ruby finally closed the last inches, was softer than Regina had always imagined it would be.

 

* * *

   
“Ah, Regina. Do come in.” 

  
Gold sat behind a large desk littered with knick knacks, all carefully arranged, which gave his office the air of a rather small museum. This was where Gold worked his magic: a few phone calls here and a few meetings in undisclosed locations there, contact with several mysterious and unsavory sources, and it was like making money appear from nowhere at all. Like spinning straw into gold.   
  
His cane was laid out in front of him and he was dragging an antiseptic wipe across the bottom half of it. Regina swore she saw a streak of red wiped away.   
  
“So sorry I couldn’t meet with you earlier. Meetings meetings meetings, you know how it is.” He looked up with a sly, sideways smile that was not at all reassuring, then lifted his cane and gave it a theatrical twirl, a flash of gold in his teeth. “Sometimes people just don’t want to talk.”   
  
Regina’s frown tightened minutely, but she refused to startle. “I trust you called me here for a reason?”  
  
“Ah, of course.” Gold spun his cane back to the ground, leaning heavily on it as he circled around the desk towards her. “That pretty young thing you’re locking lips with on the oceanfront,” he clucked his tongue reproachfully, “very much against company policy.”  
  
Regina looked down at her carefully folded hands. “That was a  mistake. She has a certain...charm that got the better of me.” She looked up and added, steadily, “I won’t let it happen again.”  
  
“I think we’re past that now, dearie.” An unwanted hand settled on her shoulder, his voice uncomfortably near. “She’s already a liability. You’re an important part of this, Regina, and I dare say if she stumbles into something she’s not supposed to, you wouldn’t take kindly to her…” his lips twitched, “going on an unexpected vacation.”  
  
Regina stared back, stonily. “If you’re worried she’ll be a distraction, then fire her.”  
  
“Oh my, my, my.” He rocked a little on the balls of his feet, thoughtful. “So quick to throw the little pup under the bus.”  
  
“Simply keeping things in perspective.”  
  
Gold held her gaze for a long moment, scrutinizing. Then her mentor’s lips drew back slowly into a sharp smile. “That’s what I needed to hear,” he gave her shoulder a familiar clap, turning her so that they stood side by side, his cane twirling idly in front of them. The paint on its bottom half was starting to splinter, as if it had collided with something many, many times.   
  
“I don’t think it’s come quite to firing her. We’ll simply transfer her out of our department, that way you won’t have to put an end to your…” he wiggled his fingertips, ”dalliance. You can walk around the casino holding hands for all I care. If it is, in fact,” his voice climbed into sickly sweet, “twu wuv.”   
  
Regina licked her lips, warily. “And that way you can keep an eye on her.”  
  
Gold smiled smoothly. “And that way I can keep an eye on her.”   
  
His cane tapped out his steps as he released her and rounded his desk again, settling into his chair.   
  
“There’s no need for trouble, dearie, so long as you continue working your magic.” He made a show of lifting Ruby’s employee file out of his desk drawer, flipping through it casually, and then setting it down on top of his desk. Her home address was highlighted.   
  
“I’d rather not snuff out such a pretty light if I don’t have to, but you have your fingers on the finances and, well…” He steepled his fingers. “She’s had her fingers on you.”      
  
Regina scowled. “Indeed.”

                                                                           

* * *

  
In the dying light Regina sat with her legs dangling over the edge of the wooden playhouse, ankles crossed. A few stars were just beginning to twinkle in the evening sky and the tide had drawn out far enough that the beach was lined with slick, reflective seashells, spotting the sand like a reflection of the dappled sky.   
  
“So,” Ruby said stepping along the creaking, wooden boards of the beachside castle to sit beside her, “we have an excuse to talk now.”  
  
Regina squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and wondered vaguely if it was too late to cancel this beachside meeting. When Ruby settled in and drew her knees up, the wooden boards groaned ominously under their combined weight. “Excuse me?”  
  
There was a minimalistic canine silhouette stitched out across Ruby’s sweatshirt and an easy warmth to her smile. She was in the process of kicking off her shoes. “You know,” she said, toes wiggling, “now that they think we’re dating.”  
  
“Miss Lucas, they think we kissed–”  
  
“–we _did_ kiss–”  
  
“–not that we’re star crossed lovers.”  
  
Ruby shrugged, like there wasn’t much of a difference.    
  
“I don’t know why you think I have any interest in talking to you,” Regina snapped. “You pulled an incredibly dangerous stunt which could and should have gotten you killed, you refused my offering to put you in a protection program, and you insist on associating with me where all the wrong people can see you.” She cast a haughty look at the woman next to her. “Frankly, your intelligence is so questionable I’m not terribly interested in anything you have to say.”  
  
Those large eyes stared back at her, unblinking. “Wow, okay.” Ruby tilted her head back and drummed her fingers on the wood, taking inventory of the darkening sky. “You are a prickly one, aren’t you?”  
   
Regina shot her a venomous look, and Ruby held up a placating hand.   
  
“No offense, your majesty. Look, you’ve clearly got a handle on the financial side of this operation. Heck, I’m pretty sure you run all the numbers... But you know what you don’t do?”  
  
Regina raised one eyebrow, tentatively.  
  
“You don’t hear the conversations down at the Round Table.” Ruby wiggled her eyebrows a little. “Since they transferred me to waitressing, I do. And some of those cryptic conversations make a lot more sense in light of recent events.”  
  
“Jesus christ,” Regina hissed, “do you have a death wish? If they figure out what you’re doing, you will be killed. No, tortured and then killed.” Sensing the girl’s complete lack of self preservation, Regina growled, “Your _family_ will be killed.”  
  
Ruby stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “I have one living relative, and I’d honestly like to see them try.”  
  
Regina’s jaw flexed. “You are a moron.”   
  
“And you’re about as pleasant as a root canal, but.” Ruby drummed her fingers over the wooden boards several more times. “I think I can give you information you can’t get elsewhere. Surely that’s worth something.”  
  
If Regina was honest, it was worth a lot.    
  
“Trust me,” Ruby continued, “I don’t want anyone pulling my toenails off or strapping me to cement blocks at the bottom of a lake either.” She unfolded her legs and dangled them off the side of the playhouse, watching her feet swing. The waves crashed rhythmically in the distance, like a gentle metronome, and it counted out several beats before Ruby spoke again. “But, if these guys are as bad as you say they are, then they need to be stopped. I don’t want credit, I don’t want money, I don’t want anything. I just want to help by passing on what I hear.”  
  
That impossibly earnest look was back, the one with a slight head tilt and a hesitant, almost smile, and Regina was getting a migraine again. The one that was becoming synonymous with Ruby Lucas doing things that could get them both killed.   
  
“Just a few walks on the beach with me,” Ruby said softly, “just long enough for me to repeat what I’ve heard. That’s all I’m asking.”  
  
Regina swallowed, jaw tight.  
  
“...Fine.”  
  
Ruby enthusiastically pumped one fist into the air, and Regina rounded on her with her deadliest glare; which, admittedly, was somewhat compromised by the way the other woman was swinging her bare feet from a children’s playhouse.   
  
“You will do what I say, when I say it,” Regina snapped. “We will meet when I say we will meet, where I say we will meet, and that is all. You will not contact me outside of that or you will—and I literally cannot stress this enough—get us both tortured and killed.” Ruby’s face was lighting up like Christmas was coming early, and Regina resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “We will continue,” she gestured vaguely between them, “whatever it is they think we are doing in the public eye, as an explanation for our time spent together. And if we are anything less than convincing we will both be found in pieces somewhere several miles down the coast.”   
  
Ruby grinned, wolfishly. “Sooo, what I’m getting from this is that I’m going to kiss you again.”  
  
At that, Regina did roll her eyes.   
  
With Ruby buzzing with excited (but blessedly silent) energy, Regina settled in rearranging her week’s appointments in her mind’s eye, trying to plan the best times and places to avoid being overheard. Next to her Ruby flopped back onto the wooden boards, sprawling out her long limbs. A knee bumped casually against Regina’s hip, and she pushed it away absently.    
  
“Can we have a stakeout?” Ruby asked after several quiet minutes, her foot wiggling.   
  
"Miss Lucas, this isn't a buddy cop show."  
  
Ruby grinned, all dimples and cheekbones. "Isn't it, though?"  
  
Regina sniffed, irritably. "I should have shot you."  
 


	3. Chapter 3

Ruby’s fake-girlfriend kisses turned out to be as eager and convincing as her fake-girlfriend smiles, which Regina had received warmly and often during the first few weeks that they spent masquerading as an item.    
  
“I thought you said,” Ruby started after their second kiss, which had gotten markedly out of hand. Her throat was sporting a little half-moon bitemark and she was looking dazed, backed up onto Regina’s desk. “...that you don’t bite.”   
  
Regina dragged a nail beneath her own bottom lip, straightening out lipstick which was now a smeared mess of Ruby’s brilliant red and Regina’s deep plum. “Habit,” she drawled, in a voice that sounded more hungry than sated.    
  
Ruby’s long legs pressed in, a little wistfully, around Regina’s hips. Her grin was playful, painted in blended shades of lipstick. “Got any other great habits I should know about?”  
  
“Several,” Regina answered lowly. If the way Ruby arched under her nails and keened at the drag of teeth was any indication, then there were a few inclinations that Ruby definitely wanted to know about.   
  
“C’mere,” Ruby murmured.  
  
Regina’s heels clicked against the tile as she took a very small, very precise step back into Ruby’s space, hips pressing against spread thighs. Their lips ghosted together in a whisper kiss, Ruby’s eyes fluttering to look down at Regina through her eyelashes.   
  
Her lips were still kiss-swollen, shining wet, and her fingers hadn’t left where they’d been holding onto Regina’s shoulders for dear life. When she spoke it sounded like she was still trying to catch her breath; and just like bringing Regina coffee in the morning, just like lounging through lunch breaks in Regina’s office, and just like a first kiss shared with sand beneath their toes—Ruby’s eyes were brilliant and bright.  
  
“I could get used to this,” Ruby said fondly, and the smile slid slowly off Regina’s face.   
  
She stepped pointedly backwards, then filled several very uncomfortable seconds of silence by straightening out her blouse.   
  
“I think that’s enough for today, Miss Lucas,” she said, as gently as possible. At least three different people had walked past Regina’s office in the last ten minutes and she’d say the disheveled state she’d left Ruby in more than kept up appearances. Regina glanced up, and if Ruby had a tail it would have been drooping.  
  
But, ever the optimist—sweet, fool girl—it didn’t get her down for long. “So,” Ruby re-crossed her legs and swung them a little as she pulled down her skirt to something more office-friendly, “do you run? You look like you run.”  
  
Regina raised an eyebrow, and after several seconds of non-answer Ruby elaborated, “There’s a path that leads out of town into the woods, by my place. It’s very quiet at night….nice and solitary.“ Ruby tilted her head, saying as much as she could in an office that was probably bugged. “Might be nice for us to take a run there, in case you’re tired of walking on the beach.”  
  
“Ah.”   
  
Regina spent another few seconds producing a compact case from her desk drawer and straightening her hair up just enough, weighing her options. That idea seemed safe enough, and switching their meeting location was a good idea. Ruby was smarter than most people gave her credit for. She would have made a good cop.   
  
Well, except for that warning would-be criminals business.   
  
“Tomorrow night,” Regina agreed, as Ruby slid off her desk with a lanky sort of grace, “I’ll call you.”  
  
Ruby smiled and bent down a little ways to kiss Regina on the cheek—who, for her part, couldn’t quite bring herself to protest, though she was about ninety percent sure that not even the front office girl was watching them anymore.   
  
“Bring your A-game,” Ruby tossed her a wink, “you’re gonna need it. No one runs through the woods like a Lucas.”  
  
Ruby turned on her heel and Regina watched her walk out of the office and down the hall—hips swaying—with the same sort of helpless expression that a drowning woman might wear, if they couldn’t quite summon the strength to swim.   
                                                                         

* * *

   
Regina sat, sipping her coffee, in one of the only places that she and David could safely meet.   
  
Someone had been tailing her when she left her house in the early morning light—something that was becoming more and more common these days—but she was reasonably certain that she lost them the moment she walked into City Hall.   
  
David’s smile lit up the room as he sauntered in holding a box of donuts, took a powdery bite, and stopped briefly to make small talk and offer pastries to a few of the women behind the counter. Meanwhile Regina sat at the end of the queue, waiting to pay her brand new parking ticket.   
  
“Seriously, Charming?” Her fingernail tapped impatiently at his signature, scrawled across the bottom of her ticket, as he slid down into the chair beside her. “I’ve never parked illegally in my life.”  
  
“Donut?” He offered with a good-natured smile.  
  
“No, thank you.” She flicked a stray speck of powdered sugar off her skirt and re-crossed her legs. “We can’t both fall so neatly into police stereotypes.”   
  
“Sorry about the ticket,” he said sheepishly. “I just know you’re in deep and wasn’t sure how else to reach you,” he gestured to his uniform, “It’s not like you can be seen going for a stroll with a me.”  
  
“It was a good idea,” she allowed, though she could think of better uses for the hundred dollars she was about to lose.     
  
“So, the elusive Rumplestiltskin, hmm?” David mused through what sounded like another bite of donut. “That explains why you’ve been so far off the grid.”  
  
Regina’s fingers flexed a little at her side. It had been a terrible operation, easily the worst of her career. Usually jobs were not nearly so brutal, not nearly so involved. But she had seen things, done things in order to stay under cover—  
  
Her stomach clenched, and she stopped that train right out of the gate.   
   
“I’m sorry, David,” she said with surprising sincerity, the kind only he and his asinine wife seemed to be able to draw from her. “I know the scarcity of my contact must have...concerned you.” She still wasn’t quite used to that, the idea that someone worried about where she was and what she was doing. “But,” Regina added in a firm voice, “I do keep my promises.”  
  
“I know you do,” David agreed. Then, a little cautiously, “Mary Margaret misses you, you know.”    
  
Regina, through an incredible force of will, managed not to roll her eyes.   
  
“I know you’re not her biggest fan, but she does adore you.”  
  
“She shouldn’t.” Regina sipped at her coffee mildly. It was black, which she had used to enjoy, but now she found it oddly bitter in the wake of the doctored up coffee that Ruby been bringing.   
  
“So,” David quirked a smile, as if reading her mind, “how’s our informant, Little Red Riding Hood?”  
  
The alias brought to mind the red streaks in Ruby’s hair and that broad, bright smile that could light up a room. Something in Regina’s chest tightened with a helpless sort of warmth, and she frowned.   
  
“She’s refused to go into protection and she’s trying to siphon me information.” Regina’s lips twitched downward. “We’re posing as a couple.”  
  
David let out a low whistle. “Wow. You really know how to pick ‘em.”  
  
“I did not _pick_ anything–”  
  
“Yeah,” David’s smile had gone crooked. “That’s why you have that look you get… I mean it’s been a lifetime since I’ve seen it, but I know that look. Mary Margaret will be so excited–”    
  
“ _David–_ ” she began, in her most menacing voice.  
  
“You don’t scare me, lady.” He puffed up his chest a little, a display that was somewhat lessened by the faint dusting of sugar on his badge. “I’m an officer of the law.”  
  
She smacked him across the arm. “That means you have a badge, not a magic shield.”    
  
“Assaulting an officer,” he huffed.  
  
She sighed and settled back into her chair. He brushed his fingers clean and moved the box of donuts to the floor, drawing his knees together and leaning his elbows on them, thoughtfully. They sat in silence for a moment, then Regina braved the inevitable.  
  
“How’s Emma?” She asked, in her softest tone.     
  
“Oh, you know.” He spent a moment watching his jumping knee. “Would be a lot better if we had adopted her about five years ago.” David dragged a hand over his face. “She’s not loving prison.”  
  
Regina put a gentle hand between his shoulderblades. Only people as impossibly soft, as indomitably optimistic as the Charmings would decide to adopt a seventeen-year-old girl who’d spent her whole life in the system.   
  
He lifted his eyes to meet hers and his expression was that patented Charming hopeful, with just a hint of fear, pinching sharp and unfamiliar at the edge of his eyes. “How soon will you be out of there?”   
  
“Soon enough, David.” She gave his shoulder a squeeze and pressed her eyes shut, tried to keep her voice steady. “I promise.”   
                                                                       

* * *

   
The woods beyond the Lucas cottage were dark and deep, and the path—which Regina realized now was really more of a game trail than an actual hiking path—was so rough and narrow, so undetectable in places, that only Ruby could pick their way through the low-hanging branches and blanketed pine needles, and without her Regina knew she would be horribly lost.   
  
Which was perfect; anyone with pipe dreams of following them was surely long gone now, lost in an impossible maze of trees.   
  
“Where’s your phone?” Regina asked about thirty minutes in, when her muscles were heavy and her breathing came quick.   
  
Ruby slowed her easy pace to a trot, looking back at Regina over her shoulder. “Left it in the office,” she said, then added quietly, carefully, “like you said.”  
  
“Good,” Regina huffed, slowing to a stop and rolling out her ankle. The trail was rougher than she might have liked, privacy aside; but Ruby seemed to recognize that she had three inches of leg to her advantage, and that the woods were just a dark mystery to Regina, full of perilous places to trip.   
  
“I’m almost positive it’s bugged,” Regina hummed. “You might want to consider dropping it in a glass of water tomorrow.” At Ruby’s scandalized expression Regina quirked a smile, leaving her in suspense a few seconds longer than was absolutely necessary. “I’m kidding. But, do be careful what you say around it.”  
  
“Rude.” Ruby leaned back against a tree and stretched, then seemed to decide this was her cue to speak freely. “So, when you wore that little dress out to dinner the other night,” she tilted her head, “where were you hiding your gun?”  
  
Regina suppressed a laugh, but only just. “You finally get me alone and _that’s_ what you ask me?”  
  
“You told me you’re always armed.” Ruby shrugged. “The whole night was like the _Where’s Waldo_ of weapons.”  
  
Regina smirked. “My bra has a holster, dear.”   
  
“Aaah.” Then, with a casual sideways glance at Regina’s chest, “Where does one purchase a bra holster? I’m asking for a friend–”  
  
“I’ve been wanting to ask you something,” Regina interrupted.   
  
Ruby planted a hand on one of the trees, rolled out her hips and stretched out her calves. Light came down through the canopy in speckled bursts and she looked strangely at home there, in a light sheen of sweat and scattered moonlight. It was beautiful—in the way that wild things are beautiful—and Regina looked a moment too long before dragging her eyes away.   
  
“Most people in your situation,” Regina began, “would keep their head down and get out.” Her eyes flicked up, inquisitive. “People without a death wish... I’m referring to you helping me now, by the way, not your initial attempt at saving the wayward accountant.”  
   
“Hey,” Ruby protested, “I didn’t think you were wayward, just hot and diabolical.” She planted a hand on her hip, dragged her eyes over Regina slowly. “And actually I stand by that last part. There’s a gun in your bra.”  
  
Regina rolled her eyes, then occupied herself with re-tying her laces to hide a smile. Somewhere off in the distance she could hear little movements in the underbrush, crickets chirping, an owl calling.   
  
“So, you’re asking why I stuck around and helped you? Why I _insisted_ on helping you?” At Regina’s nod, Ruby pulled her long hair out of its ponytail and began to rake her fingers through it, untangling streaks of red from brown, tentatively.   
    
“I’ve...kinda got a vendetta,” Ruby said eventually, in a voice that was a little quick and a lot rough. “My mom and dad were into PCP when they were alive, got really into it after I was born. My grandma says at the time they called it _the wolf._ ”  
  
Regina swallowed, voice thick. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s all right. I just don’t want shitheads like Gold to give other people a chance to be that person either, you know?” Ruby paused, her toe scuffing absently over the ground, scoring the dirt. “Leave their kids without parents, that kind of thing.”   
  
There was pain, so much pain past the firm set of Ruby’s jaw that it was not a conscious choice to move—because Regina couldn’t quite stop herself, not from stepping forward, not from making a small, soothing sound low in the back of her throat, and not from reaching out and covering Ruby’s hand, stilling it where it had begun pulling more and more sharply through her tangled hair, bordering on violent.   
  
Regina cupped their wound fingers tight against Ruby’s cheek and murmured, gently, “What do you need?”   
  
She felt the warm, buzzing sensation of a spontaneous touch and watched Ruby’s eyes drift towards their intertwined fingers, then up to meet Regina’s gaze—and for all that Ruby’s voice had been guarded, her eyes were open, they were _raw,_ and something in Regina’s chest ached at the way Ruby bared her teeth.   
  
“Just, stop them,” Ruby said in a small, fierce voice, “Just...lock them up.”  
  
“We will.” Regina promised it without pause, with a certainty that should have startled her—but her lips brushing over Ruby’s forehead felt like second nature, like something she couldn’t stop even if she tried.   
  
Their eyes held for several heavy heartbeats before Regina pulled back, thumb sweeping briefly over Ruby’s cheek before she looked away.    
  
“Now, Miss Lucas, tell me what you heard this week.”  
  
They walked, with Ruby repeating the conversations she’d overheard in painstaking detail and Regina putting together the pieces out loud. Only little bits here and there were important—subtle references to locations and contacts that would mean little to anyone else, but something to Regina—and it was lucky that Ruby had a mind like a steel trap because it was the phrasing, more often than not, that made the difference.   
  
It grew colder, darker, and their limbs were getting stiff by the time Ruby finally ran out of conversations to repeat and said instead, through a yawn, “Can I ask you a question?”  
  
Regina had the faint impression that she should say no, but she’d always struggled with saying no to Ruby Lucas. “I suppose I can’t stop you.”    
  
“When you talk about wrapping everything up, putting together the arrest list and closing out the case, you always say two months.” Ruby held a branch rather gallantly out of Regina’s path, then fell into step behind her. “What happens in two months?”  
  
Regina’s gut reaction was to brush it off, but something about Ruby’s transparency—something about the clear, crisp way Ruby spoke like there was nothing but the truth and simply various times to tell it—made Regina feel like maybe she could answer. Like maybe she _should._  
  
“I’m going to be a mother,” Regina said, clipped and even, her hackles going up.  
  
Ruby stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes doubled in size, her mouth fell open, and—under Regina’s suddenly lethal glare—  
  
She threw out both her arms and dragged Regina into a hug that just about threatened to break all her ribs. “That’s _wonderful,_ Regina, oh my God! Congratulations!”   
  
“Get off.”  
  
It took several seconds and several irritated noises in the back of her throat for Ruby to finally let go, and even then she pulled back looking like smiling was a sport and she was on the leaderboard.   
  
“Although...” Ruby squinted and waved a hand loosely over Regina’s general stomach area, “you’re not exactly seven months pregnant.”  
  
Regina sniffed, haughtily. “Yes, thank you for that observation, Miss Lucas. Masterful.”  
  
“Do you, uhm…” Ruby’s smile faltered ever so slightly, “have a wife?”  
  
“I’m adopting him.” Regina saw Ruby’s eyes light up again, and then—primarily because she wanted to watch Ruby go through the mental gymnastics—she added, “It’s David’s grandchild, actually. His daughter is due in two months.”  
  
Ruby’s face seemed to be trapped in a tug-o-war between elation and confusion. “Charming? He does _not_ look old enough to have a grown daughter.”  
  
“He’s not,” Regina agreed. “She’s seventeen. They adopted her a year ago, after he arrested her for petty theft.” Regina walked over to a tree stump she had been eyeing and sat down, stretching out her tired limbs, arching her back. “She got tangled up in a grand larceny case about six months ago. She’s doing time for her last trimester.”  
  
Ruby sat down on the ground beside her and dragged her knees up to her chest. “Whoa.”  
  
“Yes,” Regina agreed, “whoa.”  
  
“So, you’re adopting her baby.”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
Ruby hummed her understanding and a breeze pressed through around them, making a few of the trees creak. Ruby was close enough now that her shoulder bumped against Regina’s thigh and the presence, the feel of another’s body heat and sound of Ruby breathing, was grounding. Regina squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled.   
  
“Henry... that’s going to be his name.” She whispered it like a prayer, and felt overstrung just talking about it. “On paper I’ll be adopting him with full custody, but, in practice… Once Emma is out of prison, we’ll share.”   
  
“Wow.” Ruby turned to look up at her, eyes glossy in the open moonlight. “That...is a really kind thing of you to do.”  
  
Regina cleared her throat. “Yes, well. Our families have history, and her only other option was a closed adoption.” The moon hung, luminous, over them, and Regina eyed it dubiously. “Emma is an obstinate, crass pain in the ass but... she deserves to be a mother if she wants to be.”   
  
There was a quiet moment where she could feel Ruby’s eyes on her, the weight of her gaze like a physical thing, and then Ruby was leaning, pressing in warm and familiar against Regina’s hip, and curling over to rest her head in Regina’s lap.   
  
Regina froze—several tight seconds ticking past, her hands raised and rigid; but the touch felt oddly like acceptance, like understanding, like a declaration of loyalty—and so, tentatively, she settled a hand on Ruby’s head.   
  
“You’re going to be such a good mother,” Ruby said under her breath.   
  
Regina slowly released the air in her lungs and ran her fingers through Ruby’s hair, loosening out the tangles and brushing it back from Ruby’s cheek, scratching over Ruby’s scalp gently, affectionately—  
  
Because Ruby said it with so much heart, that Regina could almost believe it.  

  


	4. Chapter 4

In the weeks that followed their office kisses got longer, sweeter, and felt less and less for show—and though Ruby knew better than to mention it overtly outside of their more secure rendezvous, she made about a hundred casual references to motherhood a week and glowed so brightly that Regina was halfway to believing it was Ruby herself who was pregnant.  
  
They settled into a routine very similar to before Ruby’s involvement in the case—with Ruby bringing them both coffee in the morning and laughing good naturedly through Regina’s jabs at the ludicrous sugar content—but Regina’s coffee now came with good morning pecks and short walks along the shore; brief check-ins amidst the crashing of the waves and privacy that was, admittedly, only used about half the time for business.   
  
“I’ve been married before,” Regina admitted one day, for a reason she couldn’t quite explain. The truth of it seemed to be pressing in on her ribs, a heavy and threatening pressure, and it felt good to let it out—though the words were bitter on her tongue. “To a man much older than myself.” Her fingers tightened a little around her coffee cup, nails reshaping the cardboard. “I have a step-daughter.”  
  
Ruby only paused for moment, then fell back into stride. “David’s wife?” Ruby hazarded, as if this was a theory she’d been working on for several weeks. Regina hummed her affirmation, and Ruby looked over to tease, “Is that where you got your nickname, the Evil Queen?”   
  
Regina flinched, heavily, and Ruby blinked and shifted uncomfortably. She obviously wasn’t expecting that to be a yes.    
  
“Well... then you’ve had practice,” she said, trying to soften the blow, “with parenting.”  
  
“Hardly,” Regina scoffed, voice full of laughter and none of it funny. “I was practically a child at the time. At best I was a glorified babysitter.” She caught sight of Ruby looking at her and waved a hand dismissively. “Social elite, my mother arranged the wedding as a status leap. Believe it or not that sort of thing still happens.”  
  
Ruby’s eyes were full and sad, like they were reading between the lines. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Regina could feel Ruby moving beside her alert and attentive, uncertain whether or not she would be allowed an embrace, so she scowled and bit out, “I’m not looking for pity.”    
  
“And I’m not giving it.” Ruby stopped, bent over to scoop up an iridescent shell from the sand, and turned it over between her fingers carefully.   
  
“Look, I’ve seen my fair share of beds on this side of Maine and I…” Ruby smiled a little timidly. “Well, let’s just say it wasn’t love for most of them. Once or twice I just needed a place to sleep safely, which I’m fairly certain is called _banging for roof,_ so. Believe me, I’m not judging or pitying your romantic choices.”   
  
Ruby turned the seashell over several more times in her hand then pocketed it, thoughtfully. “I’m just saying, I get it. We’re grown women, we’ve got experiences and not all of them are great. But. I’m sorry you’ve got ones that suck, especially ones you didn’t choose.”  
  
Ruby looked at her—with soft green eyes like morning coffee and hello kisses and understanding—and it was almost embarrassingly easy for Regina to put her claws back in, to bend over and pick up her own seashell, pearly and shimmering in the morning light, and pocket it for really no reason at all.   
  
“He’s dead now, my husband,” Regina murmured, seemingly helpless to stop from offering Ruby yet another piece of truth. She felt more helpless still when Ruby reached for her hand and their fingers slid together, effortlessly.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Ruby answered, gently.  
  
“Don’t be,” Regina’s voice took on a hard, unapologetic edge as the waves crashed and she took a sip of what was left of her coffee, the sugar sweet on her tongue. “I’m not.”   
  
Ruby squeezed her hand, and Regina held on and on and on.  
                                                                         

* * *

   
They went out to dinner at the casino, for appearances.   
  
Ruby ordered a steak so red it might as well have been bleeding, and devoured it with an intensity that made Regina fear for Ruby’s fingers—which, to Regina’s horror, were used entirely too much for civilized dining. Regina let Ruby play shameless footsie with her under the table while they kept the conversation to safe, non cover-blowing topics, and Regina laughed her way through Ruby’s checklist of the worst customers to ever grace Granny’s Diner; then got progressively more pissed off to learn that Ruby’s red shorts had given several morons the impression that they could cop a feel.    
   
“I didn’t know I had a _jealous_ girlfriend,” Ruby teased, looking down at Regina through her eyelashes.  
  
“Protective,” Regina corrected simply, sipping her wine.   
  
It took her a full ten seconds to realize she _wasn’t_ Ruby’s girlfriend, jealous or otherwise, and that the thought left her oddly unsettled. She snapped at the waiter for a poor wine pairing and stabbed her pasta with unnecessary vigor, all under Ruby’s too-discerning gaze.   
  
There was still a seashell in her pocket, and it was somehow directly tied to the ache inside her chest.   
 

* * *

   
The following night found Regina pulling up a dirt driveway long enough to be its own road, low hanging branches coming dangerously close to scratching her car. The woods around the Lucas cottage were dense, shielding it from the outside world like a stationary army, and she spent several moments surveying the property before killing the engine.   
  
She stepped out of the Benz carefully, one hand on the holster beneath her jacket, but nothing moved except the white-haired woman on the porch who was, honest to god, cleaning a crossbow.   
  
Ruby had not exaggerated about her grandmother.   
  
“Regina Mills, I trust,” came a quick, no-nonsense voice.  
  
Regina’s heels tapped out her arrival as she walked up the porch. “Mrs. Lucas,” she replied.  
  
“Widow Lucas,” the woman corrected. “People call me Granny.” Regina felt rude calling anyone Granny, but she was not going to argue with a crossbow facing in her general direction. Granny glanced pointedly at the seat beside her, and Regina sunk down into it dutifully. “I hear you’re getting my Red mixed up in some dangerous things.”   
  
“Yes, well.” Regina shifted a little, crossing her legs at the ankles. “I suggested rather strongly that she stay out of it, but. She is a very determined young woman.”  
  
Granny huffed, looking for an instant as if she might smile. “Don’t I know it.”  
  
A few moments slid past, crickets chirping and stars twinkling beyond the treeline, and Regina cleared her throat. “I hope you realized that I did not ask for her involvement in police business, nor do I want to put her in any more danger than I already have.”    
  
“Oh, I realize it.” Granny looked over her glasses, fixing Regina with a keen stare. “That’s why I haven’t shot you yet.”  
  
A tight second ticked past. Then Regina _laughed_ —full and deep and from her stomach, and she decided she liked Granny. She liked Granny a lot.  
  
This time Granny did smile, then repositioned herself to face forward in her rocker, crossbow aimed down at the porch. “Ruby’s waitin’ inside. The place isn’t bugged, can’t be. This property is six acres and no one gets on or off it that I don’t know about. So, you two can speak freely.” She rocked once, twice, three times, the chair squeaking under her. “I like it out here this time of night,” Granny added with a strange, knowing sort of look, “so there’s no hurry.”  
  
Regina raised an eyebrow. “Thank you,” she said tentatively, and wondered if the wink she thought she saw was a trick of the light.   
  
Ruby’s voice called out something indistinct from inside, and Granny dismissed her with a wave—and the idea of anyone _dismissing_ Regina Mills was lunacy, but if there was anyone on this earth who could get away with it, it was apparently the Widow Lucas—so she stood up, brushed off her pants, and stepped inside.   
  
The Lucas Cottage, it turned out, was composed entirely of log cabin walls and naturally worn wooden furniture. Regina eventually navigated her way into a room that was both brighter and warmer, and mostly decorated in red. A fire flickered in the corner and Ruby sat with her legs crossed on the bedspread, watching the doorway.   
  
“Done getting threatened?” Ruby asked, a smile tugging at her lips.  
  
“For the moment.”   
  
Regina surveyed the room for chairs and, finding none, hesitated a moment too long before sitting down on the bed beside Ruby—who crawled over almost instantly, knee nudging Regina as she peered curiously at the tin in her hands.   
  
“Secret police files?” she asked, licking her lips.  
  
“Not quite.” Regina pulled the lid off to reveal a small batch of apple cookies.   
  
Ruby went after them like a shark attack. “Oh, god,” she moaned through the first bite, “did you make these from scratch?”  
  
“Of course.” Regina brushed some crumbs off the bedspread absently. “And do try not to choke. I’d rather not give your grandmother an excuse to shoot me.”  
  
“These are amazing.” Ruby stuffed a second cookie into her mouth and devoured it with an enthusiasm that bordered on sinful. Then said, around the crumbs, “You didn’t really strike me as the Stepford type.”   
  
Regina tensed slightly at the shoulders, and Ruby paused her chewing. “I didn’t mean it like…” . Ruby ghosted a hand over her wrist; then Regina could hear, rather than see, the smile breaking out over Ruby’s lips. “You’re learning to bake for the kid. Oh, man, he’s going to love these.”  
  
It was as simple as that, the way Ruby smoothed over her edges and anxieties—and Regina felt her shoulders ease, felt the warm paths on her skin where Ruby’s fingertips had been. She glanced over to watch Ruby smile, golden lamplight threaded through her hair, and something deep in Regina’s chest spilled over with an unbearable warmth at the ease of them; at the beauty of her.     
   
“So.”  Regina cleared her throat, folded her hands in her lap, and took to examining the wood grain on the wall, trying for all the world to look as though she were not fidgeting. “I can’t imagine you invited me over in the dead of night to compliment my baking.”  
  
Ruby shot her a look—because ten p.m. was hardly the dead of night—but finished off the cookie in her hand and closed the tin, smoothing out the tissue paper inside with something like reverence. (And Regina couldn’t help wondering how Ruby would respond to more complex baked goods, or even whole meals.)   
  
“I... okay.” Ruby lifted both her hands and moved them in front of her like a flight attendant, as if they could navigate them through this conversation. Her brow furrowed; it didn’t seem to be working. “Okay, so.”   
  
“Your vocabulary never ceases to amaze me.”   
  
“ _Regina_.”  
  
Her lips twitched, but it was hard to ignore the anxious pitter-patter of her heart beneath her ribs. She could feel the weight of Ruby’s pending words growing with every second that stretched into silence, watched the other woman’s hands gesturing vaguely between them, expression strained.   
  
“Look I know,” Ruby started out in a quick, thin voice, “I know you’ve been undercover for a really long time, and I know you’re all business, and I know you said no feelings. And I also know you’re kind of planning to co-parent a little boy with a woman in jail, but–”  
  
“Miss Lucas,” Regina said it like a warning, but her voice felt fragile, small, and lost. She rearranged her features into something intimidating and enunciated purposefully, “I trust you have a point.”  
  
Ruby looked her dead in the eyes, and—with a slow, steady lean in that gave Regina plenty of time to move, which she tried to will herself to do but failed spectacularly—pressed their lips together.  
  
The kiss was gentle, unimposing, and though the contact was short and soft it left Regina’s pulse fluttering and her lips sweet. Her tongue dragged over her bottom lip and yes, there it was—apple cookies.   
  
Ruby leaned back and tucked her hair behind her ears, in a vulnerable sort of fidget. “I really like you,” she said in that clear, crisp truth voice. “When this is done–the police work, the case–I don’t want _this_ to be done.”   
  
Regina watched her for several tight heartbeats, brow furrowed and pulse racing, then licked her lips. “That was a very confusing sentence.”  
  
“ _Seriously,_ Regina?” Ruby looked torn between the need to laugh and a very fierce desire to cry, and just like that day, months ago, when Ruby had walked into her office with circles under her eyes and stood on trembling, fawn legs, Regina placed a hand at Ruby’s lower back and felt her steady.  
  
She took Ruby by the chin and turned her, slowly, until they were nearly nose to nose.   
  
“I’d like that.” Regina’s voice was soft, quiet; but she said it like it was carved in stone somewhere, weathered by wind and rain and months spent sharing secrets and smiles, like she couldn’t change it even if she tried. “Very much, actually.”  
  
The happiness that spilled out over Ruby’s face was so brilliant and bright that it took every ounce of self control Regina had to keep talking, not to kiss her again and again right then and there. To remember there were _reasons_ —  
  
Regina pressed her lips together and examined their joined hands carefully, which had, as if compelled by a force like gravity, found one another in the space between them.  
  
“I just think you should know that I haven’t... loved, in a very long time.” The words stuck in her throat like a physical thing, like they could choke her. She swallowed hard and felt her fingers clutch at Ruby’s, her nails sharp and long and dangerous on the other woman’s skin. “I’m not, I can’t…    
  
“Hey.” Ruby leaned into her space and lifted her hands, rubbed thumbs over her knuckles. “Hey, it’s all right.”    
  
“ _No,_ you don’t...” Regina pulled her hands away, found them gripping tight to her own knees, digging in. “To stay undercover for so long, I’ve...” She pressed her eyes tight shut. “It’s not all filing paperwork. The network I’ve been trying to piece together, the people I’m trying to put away... They do terrible things to other people, to one another.”  
  
“I know,” Ruby said, with the most heartbreaking trust in her eyes. “That’s why you’re trying to put them away.”    
  
“ _No,_ ” Regina snapped, fixing Ruby with a glare and speaking with slow, measured precision. “Miss Lucas, you are not listening. I... I have done terrible things.” Her fingers shook, her voice shook, everything shook. “Ruby,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “they don’t let just anyone get where I am.”     
  
Soft fingers cupped her cheek and Ruby stared, resolutely, into her eyes. “It’s okay.”  
  
“No,” Regina laughed, sharp and high and broken, “it’s really not. Those people, like Gold? I’m just like them. You have no idea, Ruby. I’ve... I’ve watched them _torture_ people. I’ve watched them kill people... I’m a monster, Ruby.”   
  
Ruby’s fingertips trailed wetly over her cheek, and it took Regina several moments to realize that the water was coming from her, that she was crying—that Ruby was watching her, silently, with Regina’s tears running over her knuckles.  
  
“I’m not fit to love,” Regina ground out. Then, in a tiny fragile voice—in words that seemed to find their way straight from her chest to her mouth, from the ache in her heart into speech without her permission—“I’m not fit be a mother.”  
  
She closed her eyes and braced for the inevitable feel of Ruby’s body pulling away from hers, the space next to her growing cold.   
  
It never came.  
  
Ruby’s palm on her cheek was warm and soft, and eventually brought her eyes open again. Their foreheads bumped together a little too roughly, as Ruby pressed in close. “You,” Ruby said forcefully, “will be the best mother.” She bared her teeth in a flash, with that same fierce, unshakable devotion.   
  
Regina swallowed, and Ruby’s hand pressed, insistent, to the space above her heart.   
  
“I knew it from day one, Regina, you’re one of the good guys. I know it, and...” Regina stared into those eyes of warm-green-clear, of soft-strong-steady, as Ruby said, firmly, “and Henry’s gonna know it too.”      
  
Hope twisted beneath Regina’s ribs—sharp and wild and _piercing_ —and she was watching Ruby’s lips when she growled, “You don’t believe that.”   
  
“I do.” Ruby’s eyes grew so focused when she answered, so sharp, that Regina knew it could only be the truth.   
  
Regina swallowed what might have started out as a sob, but ended up a muffled sort of hiccup. There was a moment of perfect stillness, with just Ruby watching her, unwavering and burning brilliant, like a tiny star inexplicably in Regina’s orbit—  
  
Then Ruby smiled and placed a small, sweet kiss at the corner of her lips; and the hope in Regina’s chest spilled over, poured warm and bright into the space between her ribs, filled her lungs in a great shaking breath—   
  
And her resolve _shattered._  
  
When she kissed Ruby it was a crash, a collision, and Regina could feel their teeth bump together hard enough to startle—but it didn’t matter because it was only a heartbeat before Ruby was kissing her back, going soft and pliant under her lips, then fierce and hungry with a hand in her hair. Long fingers wrapped to pull at the muscles of Regina’s back, to feel out the dip of her spine; and there was nothing subtle about the way Ruby swung a leg up and over and landed soundly in her lap.   
  
And if that wasn’t a declaration of loyalty, well, then Regina didn’t know what was.   
  
But she had to be sure, had to know. Because Regina wasn’t, she didn’t deserve— “You really want...”  
  
“ _Yes,_ ” Ruby answered her through a kiss, “god damn it, yes.”  
  
Ruby melted into her, moved like liquid against her, and Regina had the vague impression that they should probably slow down, should probably strive for a real first date and a real first kiss and a real conversation about what it all means, or at least make sure she no longer looked like she had been crying—but Ruby, god _Ruby_ —  
  
She was all teeth and tongue, and a hand trailing with torturous slowness up the back of Regina’s blouse, hot palm pressed to cool skin; and if Regina had thought self control was difficult when they were playing pretend then this, oh _this_ —  
  
“Your grandmother–” Regina managed to grind out, once Ruby’s lips had become a warm haze down the side of her jaw. Her hands were at Ruby’s hips, _gripping_ , and her voice stuttered to a stop when Ruby honed in on that sensitive place right above her shoulder. Teeth dragged, nipped, and a shiver rolled down her spine.   
  
“She’s not coming inside any time soon,” Ruby answered, a hot puff against wet skin. She pulled back to grin wolfishly, perched on Regina’s legs. “She does have unbelievable hearing, though, so.” She gripped Regina’s shoulder for support and extended one impossibly long leg to kick the bedroom door shut, eyes sparkling. “Try to keep it down.”  
  
Regina did her very best to look affronted, and not like she was half a second away from ripping Ruby’s clothes off with her teeth. “ _Presumptuous,_ Miss Lucas–”  
  
“Nuh-uh,” Ruby cut her off with a gentle, mumbling kiss. “You call me Ruby when I’m in your lap...” her thumbs were at Regina’s cheeks again, sweeping away what was left of the tear trails while she bumped their noses together, playfully, “or the only thing I’m eating tonight is cookies.”  
  
Regina was too poised to gape, but only just.   
  
Then Ruby’s hips started to _roll,_ and it was all Regina could do to turn her gasp into a smirk, to tighten her grip and hold those hips still. “Your pillow talk is atrocious.”  
  
Ruby laughed, warm and light and bright—  
  
And Regina flipped them over to kiss her soundly, this time with no one watching.  
 


	5. Chapter 5

“Ruby—Ruby _stop,_ ” Regina struggled to put some force into her words, to ignore the hand trailing gently up the back of her thigh, ghosting over her ass; splaying out, warm and just a little bit sticky, over the lowermost stretch of her spine.  
  
“Is the queen finally tired?” Ruby drawled, tracing little nonsense patterns into Regina’s skin.  
  
“God,” Regina groaned into the pillow, with a lot less dignity than she would usually afford. Her legs wouldn’t stop shaking. “Are you not?”  
  
Ruby laughed, and Regina could practically hear the self-satisfied smile. Ruby’s fingers walked gradually up her back. “You know, calling me god won’t _actually_ save you from what I’m gonna do once you’ve caught your breath.”  
  
“Promises promises,” Regina said into the pillow. She couldn’t quite bring herself to be embarrassed at the low, sated quality her voice had taken on, or at the way she arched, bare and feline, with her chest pressed into the mattress. There was that tell-tale languor in her limbs, the taste—sweet-sharp and keenly _Ruby_ —on her tongue, and it was a special kind of gorgeous, the kind she felt right down to her bones.  
  
And when she opened her eyes, she couldn’t quite fight a smile.  
  
The flickering, firelight shadows sunk into the dips and curves of Ruby’s long, lean body—painted the slopes of her hipbones and the space beneath her breasts, tucked softly between her open thighs and traced the gentle crosshatching of her stomach—and it was completely beyond Regina not to sigh, sweet and heavy, at the sight.  
  
She slid into the dip beside Ruby, inched closer so that they were touching, with her body curled up and Ruby’s naked limbs starfished out across most of the bed. Ruby still had one red and black striped sock on, somehow, and she grinned and wiggled it against Regina’s bare calf. “You look so cute, all tiny and tuckered.”  
  
“Stop,” Regina ordered, glaring at the offending foot; but it was half-hearted at best, and became lesser still when Ruby’s body, familiar and soft, moved to drape gently over her back. Red-streaked hair spilled over her shoulders, tickled, and Ruby nuzzled into the dip of her neck. A tingle started between Regina’s legs once again, a warm buzz when Ruby started to nibble, at the warm press of open-mouthed kisses...  
  
“And stop that, too,” Regina said, traitorous hips canting back into the cradle of Ruby’s hips, instinctive and wanting—and she would have given in again if sleep weren’t already tugging on the edge of her consciousness, if she didn’t feel like she’d just run a horizontal marathon—  
  
If there weren’t a terrifying woman with a crossbow sitting out on the front porch, eventually wanting to come inside. Regina pressed her eyes shut and huffed, swatting sharply at a slender hip. “Off.”  
  
“Spoilsport,” Ruby whined, body thunking heavily as she fell back onto the mattress.  
  
Regina rolled onto her back and stretched out; let her hand fall onto the pillows between them to toy with their mingled hair. The fireplace crackled, the wind whispered in a steady hiss against the windowpane, and—after leaning over for one more slow, lazy kiss—Ruby’s breathing fell into a steady rhythm beside her, deep enough that Regina thought she might have slipped into sleep.  
  
The moment curled around her, peaceful and warm and _safe_ , with Ruby’s rhythmic breath and warm body so near, and Regina felt herself beginning to drift off, staring at the wood grain on the ceiling.  
  
She was relaxed, more relaxed than she had felt in so, so long—but some of the tightness must have returned to her features, to the set of her spine with her wandering thoughts, because Ruby (who, it turned out, was not sleeping) rolled over to stretch an arm across her stomach and prop her head up on one hand.  
  
She tilted it curiously. “Are you thinking about work?”  
  
Regina opened her mouth to say _no,_ but Ruby just fixed her with that look, with that soft mouth and even softer eyes, and what came out instead was, “It’s almost over.”  
  
Ruby just hummed her agreement, and dropped a few light kisses onto her shoulder; waited patiently for the rest.  
  
“I have evidence on every single important connection now,” Regina said quietly, then added, “thanks to you,” to watch Ruby glow a little at the praise.  
  
“So,” Ruby murmured in a sleepy-slow tone, tugging the blankets up around their hips, “so, that’s good then. And you’ve got lots of evidence on the bookkeeping.”  
  
“Yes,” Regina agreed, even as she frowned. She threw an arm up over her eyes to block out the light. “But there’s no solid proof of the violence, yet. Not for Gold.”  
  
Ruby’s fingers swirled idly over her breastbone. “But the money is enough, right?”  
  
“Yes and no,” Regina answered carefully. “Money laundering, that’s... Gold will go away, they’ll all go away, but not for nearly long enough.” Regina trailed a hand idly across Ruby’s knee, pressed an absent kiss to the side of the other woman’s head. ”What I really need to get him on is the violent crimes. I’ve been waiting for him to give us something, but… He’s being extra cautious, now that he’s suspicious of me.”  
  
Ruby’s fingertips slowed somewhere just north of her belly button. “Are you worried you won’t be ready in time?” The next words were unspoken, but heard: for Emma, for _Henry.  
  
_ Regina’s jaw flexed, and she was glad for the arm thrown over her eyes. They felt hot, prickly, and she’d cried in front of Ruby enough times tonight for one lifetime, thank you very much.  
  
“Oh, I’ll close the case in time,” she said through a tight smile, “It’s simply not… ideal.” That was the understatement of the year. Seeing Gold out of prison in this lifetime was a disaster waiting to happen. He was not the forgiving type; he was the hunt you down, make you disappear type.  
  
There was a beat—of Ruby’s hands lying still and Regina’s breathing growing uneven, her stomach beginning to twist back into knots; a moment where she knew Ruby could probably smell her fear—before Ruby nudged her. Once, twice, until she lifted her arm to blink against the light, and turned to see the quiet determination in clear green eyes.  
  
“I have an idea,” Ruby said, in the sort of small voice that precedes a much larger storm, “but you’re not going to like it.”  
  
Regina raised an eyebrow, dubiously—but then she thought of Gold doing two years’ prison time instead of twenty, instead of _life;_ she thought of Henry being a toddler, her heart strung tight with fear as Gold got released on minimal charges or good behavior; she thought of the day her little boy would just _disappear_ —  
  
And Regina pressed her lips together. “Tell me.”  
 

* * *

   
They spent the better part of Monday morning with David, fitting the small recording device into Ruby’s jacket pocket and teaching her how to use it. There was a tiny, almost imperceptible GPS tracker, too—they would never need it, David had assured them, because his team would be ready—but Regina had insisted on it anyway.  
  
Then David had moved to fasten the tracker onto the inside of Ruby’s blouse, and Regina had swatted him away. “I’ll do it,” she snapped, irritably. “ _I’ll_ do it.”  
  
And Ruby and David had laughed—at the familiar warmth when Regina touched her, because David wasn’t an officer for nothing and he wanted to tease Regina about her new lover until her ears fell off, wanted to welcome Ruby to the family in a typically overbearing Charming fashion, wanted to welcome them into _true love_ with all its trappings—  
  
So Regina let them be sentimental fools, too busy to notice her pocketing the tracker herself because Ruby wasn’t going to need it.   
  
Ruby was ready to walk into a trap; she was ready to set Gold up.  
  
Regina wasn’t ready to let her.  
 

* * *

   
The recording device Regina planted on her own jacket—too dark, too obvious—caught Gold’s eye the second she stepped into his office with their morning paperwork, three hours before Ruby’s meeting.  
  
Gold indulged her at first; listened to the way she enunciated a little too clearly, mirrored the way she smiled a little too brightly. He didn’t question the way Regina verbalized everything just a little too much as they went over the monthly finances, simply smiled, a flash of gold in his teeth.  
  
When he rose carefully and poured them a drink—because business was good and that was worth celebrating at any hour of the day, dearie—Regina drank it.  
  
She braced herself—ignored the slightly off taste to the liquor, the something that tickled at the back of her throat and made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up—and toasted to their success. She remembered the tiny tracker she’d taken from Ruby, concealed carefully against her hip, and prayed that Charming would put two and two together quickly.  
  
She was going to be a mother, and she really wanted to kiss Ruby again.    
   
The floor rose up hard and fast when she slid from her chair, and her limbs sprawled heavy and limp on the cheap industrial rug. Her head ached, her eyelids felt heavy, and the last thing she saw before darkness pressed in was Gold’s cane, planted firmly between his feet as he stood over her, drumming his fingers thoughtfully.  
 

* * *

   
Ruby had convinced them that there was no other choice—that Regina was right, they needed to get Gold on the violence or his sentence would be a joke, that he’d come back for her, for everyone that was hers—and that desperate times called for desperate measures.  
  
Regina knew she was right, but she also knew that what Ruby had proposed wouldn’t be nearly enough; that a simple audio recording would be nothing against the kind of lawyers at Gold’s disposal, if Ruby could even get him to threaten her at all.  
  
No, that wouldn’t do. They needed something more, they needed an actual victim, in the flesh—someone who could take a beating, but live long enough to stand before a jury and testify. They needed a survivor.  
  
Luckily, if Regina was anything, it was that.  
 

* * *

   
When Regina woke, her pistol was gone from its place at her ribs. She could feel its missing weight in the lightness of her ribs, in the ease of her breath; and though she was hardly surprised, its absence did nothing to calm her.  
  
Hesitantly, she opened her eyes. Unsurprisingly, she was strapped to a chair.  
  
Crates and boxes lined the walls of a warehouse Regina had seen on several memorable occasions. The air was humid, saltwater sticky, which placed them near the shore, but that was all she knew. Participants were always driven in using a windowless van. Regina listened for breathing, heard several sets of breath, and imagined that there were a few windowless-van type participants seated directly behind her, where they could see but not be seen.  
  
“I appears our guest is finally with us,” crooned a familiar voice. Her jacket was gone, so she could see the goosebumps rising on her arms at the nearness of it, right behind her left ear. “I was worried that you’d keep us all waiting.”  
  
“Never,” Regina answered evenly. “That would be bad-mannered. Though, not nearly as bad-mannered as drugging a colleague.”  
  
Two men in suits stood on either side of her silently, arms folded and their eyes fixed straight ahead. She recognized them, bouncers from the casino and regulars at this type of clandestine activity. Someone moved and shifted the air behind her, light steps and the tap of a cane.  
  
“A recording device, Regina,” Gold chided, stepping in front of her to hold out the little bundle of wires. “I honestly expected better of you.” He clucked his tongue, dropped the small device to the ground, and looked at her with reproach. He stepped on it, grinding his heel down. “This was so very, very sloppy.”  
  
Regina leered up at him with what she hoped was deadly loathing, and let her lip curl.  
  
“There are so many ways to torture someone these days, Regina.” Gold’s hands gestured wide, theatrical. There were probably several business partners seated directly behind her, and he was putting on a show. Making an example of her.  
  
“Waterboarding, pulling teeth, _electricity_ … just to name a few.” Gold rocked back on his heels and spun his cane nimbly; smiled with a flourish. “But I’m an old fashioned man. I like the simple things, like the blunt force of a steel-cored cane.” His eyes sparkled. “But for the more stubborn prisoner, for _you,_ dearie…” he gestured to a toolkit, spread out across the table behind him. An arrangement of pliers caught her eye. “I’m prepared to branch out.”  
  
Regina swallowed, licked her lips.   
  
“I had forgotten how much you like to monologue.” She watched him through narrow eyes. “That was always fifty percent of these little endeavors, wasn’t it? You, enjoying the sound of your own voice.”  
  
“I’d be very careful how you play these next few minutes, Regina.” Gold leaned down and cupped her face. His breath was hot and humid on her cheek, nauseating and entirely too close. She eyed his bottom jaw, his crooked teeth, and then took in the unhinged look in his eyes.   
  
“You will tell me everyone you are working for and everything you know.” His thumb dragged along her bottom lip, nail catching. The corner of his mouth jumped and twitched in a flickering smirk. “I’ll have you spilling your very soul within the hour, dearie. You’ve been to enough of these little meetings to know I will.”  
  
Regina pictured Ruby bound in a warehouse, threatened with pain and fear and this, and yes, she had made the right call. She wasn’t even sure if the tracker had been removed, wasn’t even sure anyone knew she was gone but yes, she’d do this a thousand times over before she let Ruby. Before she lived in fear of this being _Henry,_ strapped to a chair and terrified.  
  
She had made the right call, even if all they found was her body.  
  
“So,” Gold whispered low and close, into the shell of her ear, “would you like to save us both some time?”  
  
The laugh Regina conjured was cold and villainous. It echoed sharply around them, filled the room like rolling thunder, and she looked at Gold as if he were something that had crawled out from beneath the floorboards.  
  
“Not on your life,” she replied, loud enough for the crowd. “ _Earn_ it.”  
  
Gold hissed; drew in close enough to taste the same air, near enough for her to see the cracks in his lips. His hand tightened so hard at her jaw that it _ached,_ that she felt like it would bruise—but eventually, as if finally remembering his audience, he let go and straightened up.  
  
“You may want to reconsider that,” he said, coolly. “Because once I’ve finished with you, I’m going to find that little girlfriend of yours. And if you don't talk, well...” His smile was terrible and broad, it stretched out his cheeks and made them appear gaunt in the dim lighting, lit him up like a skeleton. “I’m willing to bet she’ll _sing._ ”  
  
Regina’s fingers twitched, her lips tightened, and something large and formidable rose up in her chest and stretched; arched its spine and splayed its claws.  
  
“When I get out,” she said, enunciating every syllable, “I’m going to _destroy_ you.” She felt that vein ticking along her forehead, her blood starting to boil; hot with _protect_ and _destroy_ and _they’ve made me a monster._ “Everything you’ve built, everything you love.” She leaned forward in her chair, nearer, and hissed, “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”  
  
Gold’s expression flickered, pupils widening in a definite note of fear; but it smoothed out quickly into that same, business smile once he remembered that she was strapped to a chair.  
  
“And I am oh-so curious,” he murmured. Then, louder for the whole room, “So, let’s get started.”  
  
Gold’s smile twisted into something familiar and ugly, and as the cane came down over her ribs for the first strike, Regina bit back a scream.  
 

* * *

   
The cavalry appeared significantly ahead of schedule.

  
(It was Ruby who put two and two together because, in spite of everything, she’d still tried to bring Regina coffee. There hadn’t been a note, but Regina had left a seashell, opalescent and bright, on the otherwise empty surface of her desk. Apparently, that had been enough.)  
  
Regina sat, flirting heavily with unconsciousness and wondering how long it would be before she found herself on the business end of those pliers, when the first gunshot sounded. She was more than half-convinced she was dreaming when a crash rang out like a door coming down, and entirely convinced she’d slipped into shock when a familiar voice sounded, ordering people to the ground.  
  
(With only a handful of Gold’s men actually armed, and Gold himself far too preoccupied with breaking Regina’s ribs—one at a time—it turned out to be a very quick extraction. Well, at least Regina imagined in hindsight that it was a quick extraction. Her sense of time had been skewed to make what was probably hour of torture feel like a full day, and the sounds of her rescue blip through her consciousness in an instant.)  
  
But she could definitely hear Charming now, his voice ringing clear and comforting and blessedly familiar, and then the gentle tones of someone else, someone that made the pain all through her body dim. (Or maybe that was the shock finally setting in, god bless adrenaline.) But, no, it wasn’t her imagination. There were definitely warm, soft fingers on her cheek, the brush of lips over her brow…  
  
Regina forced her eyes open to find Ruby crouched down in front of her, looking very much as if she had been told ten thousand times to wait in the squad car and listened to absolutely none of it, her expression pinched and pale.  
  
“What were you _thinking,_ ” Ruby was fighting with Regina’s bindings desperately, terror tight at the edge of her eyes. A handful of men in suits were being handcuffed behind her by David and the other officers. Ruby tugged, viciously, at the rope around her ankles. “You could have been _killed._ ”  
  
“Careful,” Regina rasped, her voice raw from overuse, “I’m the evidence.”  
  
Ruby huffed, tears spilling out over her cheeks. “I am so, _so_ angry with you right now.”  
  
“I love you,” Regina said, simply; and Ruby clutched her hand like there was never any doubt.  
  
David came over to nudge Ruby aside, gently, and undo the rest of Regina’s bindings with steadier hands. He shook his head but quirked Regina a smile, told her Mary Margaret was going to lecture her about personal safety ‘until she begged for mercy.’ Meanwhile, Ruby grabbed at her wrists and her face and at anything else that didn’t look bruised, told her again and again that she was going to be all right—and finally leaned forward, just to press near and _feel_ her, chest to chest in an awkward, one-sided embrace.   
  
And Regina couldn’t fight it, wouldn’t fight it even if she could. Because every time Ruby said, “this was so reckless,” and “I’m seriously so mad at you,” all Regina heard was “I love you, I love you, I love you,” and… well, it had just been a really long time.  
  
As the evidence, Regina wasn’t allowed to clean herself up until a doctor took inventory of all the breaks and bruises. Mercifully—since Gold hadn’t actually started up with the toolkit or moved from her ribcage to her face just yet—she didn’t feel too much like a horror show to kiss Ruby, even if Ruby had to do most of the kissing.  
    

* * *

   
Gold, it turned out, was a sore loser who managed to hone in on Regina’s weak spots even in handcuffs. This particular weak spot was Ruby.     
   
He’d lunged at her, wild-eyed like something feral backed into a corner, and nearly tackled her to the ground when they passed him and the officer who was reading him his rights.  
   
Regina had a gun trained on him in a matter of seconds, and Charming slammed him _down._  
  
“Just give me a reason, Gold,” Regina said in a voice she’d screamed hoarse, as Ruby rose back to her feet and David twisted Gold’s arms up behind him, forced his face into the hood of the police car. Regina’s lip twitched. “I’d love to shoot you.”  
  
“You would, wouldn’t you?” His smile was cold. Even with his body bent and twisted into an awkward angle, his expression was superior. “Have they convinced you that you’re one of the good guys? One of the white knights?” He licked his cracked lips, eyed the badge that was now pinned back on her belt. “Because you and I both know better. There’s a reason you’ve been with me so long, dearie. You like watching people hurt. You like _destroying_ people. I know you do.”  
   
During the torture Regina had strived for dignified silence, but somewhere around the time he’d started losing patience and hitting her like he meant it, her voice had slipped its leash. It hurt to swallow, it hurt even more to speak—but she glared down at him like he was beneath her, like she could crush him beneath her heel. Like Ruby’s hands weren’t the only thing keeping her upright. “Be quiet."  
   
“There’s so much hate in your heart, Regina, so much violence.” His gaze wandered over to Ruby, took in her horrified expression and flicked back to Regina, eyes hungry. “You’re _sick._ So don’t, for one second, think that you’re not just like me.”  
  
Regina tightened her finger over the trigger, and clicked the safety off.  
  
Ruby’s hand was urgent on her arm, her voice light and quick. She’d apparently been speaking for several seconds, but Regina’s ears were full of ringing. “—you’ve just gotta stay calm, okay?. You’re not like him, babe. You’re not.” Ruby pressed close, then murmured softly, warm against her cheek, “Babe, you can’t kill him. You’re gonna be a mom.”  
   
It was like a dam breaking, how quickly the pressure rushed out from her lungs, how suddenly she remembered how to breathe. The ringing in her ears subsided, and the feel of hands on her wrist became more real. David’s startled expression came into focus, along with Gold’s desperate one.   
  
“Trying to show up with a bullet wound for the jury, Gold?” David ventured, “Garner a little sympathy?”  
  
Gold’s expression flickered, and Regina gradually lowered the gun. Another officer appeared to help David move Gold towards the backseat of the police cruiser, and Regina cast a lofty look his way.   
  
“I look forward to seeing you and every one of your little friends in court.” Attempted first degree murder, assaulting a police officer, conspiracy, and money laundering; Regina ticked off the charges in her head, and raised one eyebrow with a smile. “I look forward to seeing you sentenced to life.”  
  
“When I get out—and you know I _will_ get out—” Gold leered at her, resisting being pushed into the backseat. He stood, sputtering, close enough for her to feel him speak. She watched him unflinchingly. “I look forward to meeting your child." His eyes glinted, raked over the bruises blossoming on her cheek, took in the way she was struggling not to crumple under her own weight. He smiled that gaunt, knife smile and said, “If they’re anything like you, getting to know them will be a delight."  
  
Regina had enough self-control not to shoot him, but not quite enough to stop herself from pistol-whipping him in the face.  
  
After all, she was going to be a mother, not a saint. 

  


	6. Chapter 6

Sundays, Regina knew, were Ruby’s favorite day of the week.   
  
Saturday night was date night, when Henry went to stay at the Charmings’, so Ruby stayed over at Regina’s. Then she woke up to breakfast, a handful of extra people in the living room, and got to spend the entire day in long fuzzy socks and big flannel shirts, no matter how many times Regina berated her for her lack of taste.    
  
(Ruby’s giant shirts always had shorts underneath them now during Sunday brunch, strictly because Mary Margaret had seen Ruby bend over to retrieve a binky one time in the pre-shorts era, and hadn’t been able to look her in the eye properly since.)  
  
“How kind of you to join us,” Regina said when Ruby finally sauntered into the kitchen at a quarter past ten, wandering over to completely halt the progress she was making with breakfast. She allowed one, two, three kisses planted on her lips before swatting away Ruby’s fourth, deepening good morning kiss. “We have an audience,” Regina dragged her eyes down those impossibly long legs, and fought a smile. “Put some pants on.”  
  
“Pants are for squares,” Ruby answered through a yawn, looking totally unabashed and landing a fifth kiss on her cheekbone with deadly aim.    
  
“You two are disgusting,” Emma sniped from her place on the couch, knees cast wide and shoulders sandwiched between her newfound parents. A little dark-haired bundle was struggling to stand on wobbly baby legs between her thighs, and she held Henry’s hands tightly to stop him from toppling.   
  
Regina couldn’t help but notice that Mary Margaret and David were holding hands and gazing lovingly at one another over Emma’s shoulder and _that,_ Regina thought, was disgusting.  
  
“Little maaan,” Ruby cooed at Henry, bending down to do a funny four-legged stalk across the living room rug that had him scrunchy-faced and giggling. He bounced a little in place on unsteady legs, and Regina’s whole heart melted. If Emma’s expression was anything to go by, so did hers.   
  
“Pass him here, Em?”  
  
“Look out, he’s a human volcano today,” David informed her, looking grimly at a wet streak down the front of his sweater. Regina smirked.  
  
“Ew.” Ruby crinkled up her nose, but she took Henry in her arms just the same, helping him wobble around the living room floor on little chubby legs. She did seem to make sure his mouth was aimed away from her at all times, though. Smart girl.    
  
“I can’t believe he’s nearly walking, now.” Regina hummed, sweeping in to hand out plates of eggs and toast to the four adults that always filled her living room on Sunday mornings. She settled down on the couch behind Ruby and speared a piece of egg to feed her, since her hands were full of wiggly child.   
  
“I _know._ ” Mary Margaret sighed, heavy and soulful, a hand to her chest. “I feel like just yesterday he couldn’t hold his little head up.” David beamed, and Regina’s eye only twitched slightly.    
  
“Coffee,” Emma—whose eye _had_ twitched—said grumpily, making a bee-line for the kitchen.   
  
Emma was generally an ally on the parenting front, resisting Mary Margaret’s attempt to spoil their child rotten. She still had that startled, runaway look—in the way she sat on the very edge of each chair and ate like someone was going to take her food away—but the terror at the edge of her eyes had steadily begun to recede, and her smiles were growing frequent and bright.   
  
(She was smiling just then at the sight of Henry drooling all over Ruby’s fingers, and then laughing at the way Ruby screwed up her face and whined, miming the act of wiping the drool onto Regina’s pant leg.)   
  
The morning drifted away into talk about how Ruby and Emma combined were going to eat Regina out of house and home, tentative plans for Henry to spend more time at the Charming apartment (she cringed at the idea of any time lost, but remembered that she was _sharing,_ and that it wasn’t like Ruby was going to let her mope about an empty house), and a few jokes at Regina’s expense, because she had been too stubborn to take painkillers for the last few months her ribs were healing and apparently had been an absolute bear.   
  
Henry settled down in Regina’s arms somewhere around noon, and Mary Margaret—for all her faults—was careful not to disturb them. She recruited David to help her clean the kitchen and let Emma pass out on the couch. Ruby draped a blanket over the sleeping girl, carefully, and then tucked into Regina’s side, mindful not to wake (what she would call) the sleeping scream machine.   
  
Henry. Her Henry. Henry her son.  
  
The mystique of that phrase never seemed to fade, and Regina must have had wonder written all over her face—wrapped up warm and content in the idea of this strange little family of hers, watching Henry’s tiny hand grip at her shirt in sleep—because Ruby tapped her on the knee and grinned, in that way she did whenever she caught Regina being quietly sentimental.   
  
“Oh, hush,” Regina rolled her eyes, but placed a soft kiss on the side of Ruby’s head. Ruby grinned, and rotated a little against Regina to watch the room.   
  
Mary Margaret and David—both determinedly trying to fill the role of parents to a woman nearly their own age, and landing with a clumsy sincerity somewhere in the middle—were working out how to best do dishes quietly. Emma shifted, snoring next to them like she never quite learned to sleep amidst anything but total chaos, and Henry was making funny little sleeping sounds.   
  
Ruby hummed against her. “It’s strange, this little group, isn’t it?”  
  
Regina’s lips pressed together. Surely this convoluted domesticity wasn’t what a young Ruby had pictured when she imagined a life with someone: a woman with an elaborate family history and a child. Her back straightened ever so slightly.  
  
“It’s... complicated,” Regina allowed, warily.  
  
“Yeah.” Ruby turned to look up at her, and the pressure in Regina’s lungs released at Ruby’s smile, at the sheer joy in her eyes, “Yeah, it’s perfect.”  
  
Regina smiled; because there was Ruby, staunchly refusing to wear pants, speaking softly so as not to disturb Henry, and looking at Regina like she held the answer to every important question in the universe.   
  
And yes, maybe perfect was the right word.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! :) If you like my fic, you might also enjoy my [original fiction](http://www.dreasilvertooth.com) or my [fandom tumblr](http://www.nookiepoweredamazon.tumblr.com).


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